Why Only a Top 10 ?

Since 1952, the British Film Institute magazine Sight & Sound has polled international critics for their "Top Ten" movies every ten years. In 1992, they asked film directors to also participate. Although S&S uses the designation of 'top ten' rather than 'best ten' to take into account personal subjectivity vs. critical objectivity and changing impressions, I and a number of the participants in the recent survey believe that choosing merely 10 films from the vast array of creativity that cinema art has produced over its first hundred years is far too limiting. One might say, narrow choosing equals narrow-mindedness.

If the survey should be an adjunct toward the appreciation and preservation of the finest of international film art, then I believe it should be broadened to include the greatest number of films reasonably possible.

Perhaps 10 was a reasonable number in 1952. However, if one looks at the composite top 10 of directors and critics today, only 3 of the films were made before 1952. Thus today, it would seem that a minimum of a top 30 or 35 would be more reasonable.

Some critics and directors hinted at this or addressed it directly in the comments they added to their lists.

Right now, the S&S list is the most authoritative and respected of 'best film polls' in the world. Taking all the films that received even one vote produces a list of 882 movies. Meanwhile, Cinemacom's own list currently features over 3000 films and aims toward an ultimate list of maybe 5,000.

Rather than being limited to 10, if S&S were to request lists of 35-50 films from all the critics and directors, it would add greatly toward the appreciation of film art by producing a fairly rounded authoritative list of several thousand films that would be of lasting value to everyone. Actually, I think the participants should be free to name as few or as many films as they wish, with say, a maximum number of 50 for instance. Thus we might have lists of varying lengths, just as we had in 2002 where some named two Godfathers or the Three Colours or Apu trilogies as a single choice. One director had 13 selections and all were counted equally.

On a lighter side, back in 1952, if one were asked to name 10 films that they might contentedly live with on that proverbial desert island, they were faced with the prospect of carting along cans of 35mm prints weighing at least a thousand pounds, or maybe a 150 pounds of 16mm prints. We will assume the island had electric power generators, a 35mm carbon arc or 16mm projector and suitable screen. The advent of the video tape made it possible to carry the same number of films in a small hand bag, given that the island provided the TV and VCR. Now today, one can cart 20 DVDs in the same space that 10 VHS tapes occupy (or more than 50 DVDs if they are merely sleeved). Viewing would be on a large screen HDTV provided on the island, of course.

Like some critics said, if I were limited to 10 films, I would name movies that I thought deserved recognition, and leave off others that I believed would naturally be included by others.

Thus, a certain distortion creeps into the overall poll results.

For example, here is my personal top 50 films I currently love the most, Some of my choices may considered very whimsical. Certainly my taste is eclectic. I have a personal liking for the Western, so nearly 20% of my choices are Westerns. There is one 'vampire' film, because it is beautifully done and its theme transcends the genre to comment on the eternal existence of evil in this world. And there are a few science-fiction, but not 2001. Loved the film the first time I saw it, then it became tedious. However, the majority of critics & directors disagree, & it is firmly in the Top 10.

A few polled critics offered lists featuring films which they believed deserved recognition and that no one else would mention, concerned that worthy films are being ignorned in the pressure to name only 10.

Isn't this sufficient argument against the limitation of naming only 10?

Combined Critics and Directors Tally 2002

Why combine? Many critics seem to lean more toward intellectually arousing films. Directors more toward movies that arouse in multiple ways. Critics make their livings from seeing and writing about films. Directors are too busy making films to have the time to see as many as the critics do. Looking at all the directors' selections, I find very few that I've never seen. The critics' lists feature far more films that I've never seen, a few I've never heard of before.

Thus, to me, combining the two lists produces a better-rounded selction.

Whereas Sight and Sound combined the first two Godfathers as a single entry, I have separated them according to the actual voting for each. For the Apu and Three Colours trilogies, I have added the votes of all who voted for the trilogies to the votes for the individual films. Although the first two Godfathers were later cut into a work called The Godfather Saga, maybe one person mentioned it, so all these films exist as separate works. Star Wars received a few
votes, but no one mentioned the other installments to that most widely known trilogy for good reason.

All the 882 films receiving three or more combined votes are currently included in the Cinemacom 3000. Eventually nearly all will be listed. There are at least a couple of films that got a single vote that I had previously rejected from our list, such as Grease and The Pink Panther Strikes Again which I'll maybe sometime include out of respect to those who selected them. Fortunately, no one mentioned the recent Titanic, which is also not on the Cinemacom list, although the 1953 Titanic and the superior A Night to Remember are. Cinemacom will also not be including the Tex Avery cartoon or the British Airways advert. Although, both S&S and Cinemacom list a few short live action films, I believe that seven minute cartoons are an art unto themselves, like adverts, and deserve surveying as a separte category.

Films receiving tie votes are listed chronologically. The two votes and single vote films have not been dated and are listed alphabetically. Votes received follow the director's name. For example: Total votes (7) = critics (3) + directors (4). The
disparity between the votes of critics and directors is often interesting.

Another word on the British Film Institute. They are responsible for producing the
best TV series on film appreciation since Richard Schickel's memorable Men Who Made
the Movies in the mid-1970s: Martin Scorsese's intimate & astute Personal Journey
Through American Movies.